In interview with Army Radio chief PLO negotiator says of West Bank elections, "we use ballots not bullets."

“Hamas and Fatah have differences in opinion,” Chief PLO negotiator Saeb Erekat
said Sunday morning, but stressed that “everyone has a right to run.”

“We
are a democracy” he told Army Radio, emphasizing that “whoever wins, wins.” This
does not mean that Hamas would be “taking over” the West Bank, he stated,
adding,”We don’t use bullets, we use ballots.”

When probed over whether
Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal is expected to run in the Palestinian presidential
elections, Erekat said he has not announced a decision.

“They forget that even [the late PLO leader
Yasser] Arafat recognized Israel within the 1967 lines,” he said, claiming that
after he did so he was killed. Erekat expressed hope that Russian, French and
Swiss investigators “will find out who killed Arafat.”

He also challenged
Ya’alon and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to have the courage to stand up
and say they accept the lines of 1967. “You don’t have a single Israeli minister
in this cabinet” that will do so, he told Army Radio.

Erekat also slammed
as “shameful,” events overnight in which Israeli security forces evacuated some
250 Palestinians activists from an outpost they erected in the E1 area near
Jerusalem. He refuted accusations that the Palestinians were trying to build a
settlement, saying instead that they were trying to “protect the land of their
state.”

“This situation is absolutely intolerable and I hold the Israeli
government responsible,” he said.